This paper presents content-based image retrieval (CBIR) system for the multiobject images. The goal is to retrieve those images from the database, which contains the query object, which is a difficult problem when an image consists of multiple objects with arbitrary pose. In this paper we propose a method that uses GVF active contour for the efficient shape segmentation in a multiple object scenario. We have developed a novel technique for automatic initialisation of active contour. Using only shape information degrades performance in pose varying cases. As an attempt towards mitigating this problem, colour features are also used. The preliminary results obtained by our approach are very encouraging.